[Chicken-janitors] #1587: imag-part should return 0 instead of 0.0 on a flonum

[Chicken Trac]

#1587: imag-part should return 0 instead of 0.0 on a flonum
----------------------------+--------------------------------
 Reporter:  johnwcowan      |                 Owner:
     Type:  defect          |                Status:  new
 Priority:  minor           |             Milestone:  5.1
Component:  core libraries  |               Version:  5.0.0
 Keywords:                  |  Estimated difficulty:  trivial
----------------------------+--------------------------------
 Currently if you call `imag-part` on a flonum (inexact real number) you
 get `0.0`.  This is consistent with the fact that Chicken requires the
 real and imaginary components of a non-real number to be either both exact
 or both inexact.   However, it means that there is no way to distinguish
 between a numeric value computed by real/flonum operations only, whose
 imaginary part really is exactly zero, and a number computed by complex
 operations whose imaginary part is not mathematically zero but is simply
 too close to zero to be distinguished by IEEE floats.

 If such "pseudo-real" numbers return `0.0` to `imag-part`, and actual real
 numbers return `0`, it will be straightforward to discriminate.  Even if
 we don't know the mathematically exact value of such a real number on the
 real line, we do know exactly where it falls on the imaginary line, namely
 at zero.

--
Ticket URL: <https://bugs.call-cc.org/ticket/1587>
CHICKEN Scheme <https://www.call-cc.org/>
CHICKEN Scheme is a compiler for the Scheme programming language.